The following is my précis of Professor Bart Ehrman’s responses to Dr Megan Lewis’s questions on biblical inspiration and inerrancy, using some of his own phrases and words while adding my own thoughts.
Historically, there are varied views on biblical scripture with regard to its divine inspiration and literal inerrancy. But the notion and dogma of biblical inerrancy within Christianity arose only in the 19th century, becoming the dogmatic bastion of Christian fundamentalism. Yet, for much of Christian history and even in Christendom’s creeds of the faith, there has been no mention or emphasis on this modern notion of inerrancy.
Professor Bart Ehrman argues cogently from the above points that there is nothing to suggest that one even needs the Bible or to believe in the Bible’s inerrancy in order to be a Christian. Christian beliefs were simply passed on by word of mouth from elder to child, within familial or other social contexts. I might go so far as to say that prior to the Protestant Reformation, a large majority of Christians did not even have a chance to read the Bible, let alone possess a copy at home. The same can be said for the earliest Christians when the Bible as it stands now was simply non-existent.
Church father Origen, probably the most influential theologian in the first four centuries of the Common Era, believed that while the Bible was God-breathed, it was also not necessarily inerrant. Origen claimed that the Bible contained a heap of contradictions and mistakes as deliberate acts of the Holy Spirit to invoke deeper enquiry on the part of its readers into further layers of scriptural meanings than the literal self-contradictory one. This view is undoubtedly contrarian to the modern fundamentalist dogma of inerrancy.
Thoughout the Middle Ages, there was a fourfold way of interpreting scripture where the literal meaning is only the first layer of interpretation. The other three ways of interpreting scripture were spiritual ones that aimed to take the reader deeper into the hidden meanings of the texts. It was Martin Luther who stridently excluded these deeper ways of scriptural reading in favour of the literalist approach within Protestant circles. This was reinforced by repercussions of the Enlightenment that came to privilege solely literal modes of interpretation via surface cognitive analysis, discarding deeper spiritual and might I say intuitive readings.
While the apostle Paul might have strongly believed that he was writing what came from God, and that whoever disagreed with him thus was disagreeing with God, there was nothing in Paul’s letters to suggest that he thought he was writing scripture. It would seem that he saw himself as writing letters to his communities of Christians. It was only later that Paul’s letters were collated and designated as a part of Christian scriptures. There was nothing in the letters of Paul and others to suggest that these authors ever thought they were writing the Bible. They were writing letters.
The same is true of the writers of the four gospels. There is no positive or negative evidence to make us think that they thought they were writing scripture. One assured finding of Bible scholarship is that there are contradictions between the gospels, with one gospel author saying something that contradicts another author. This creates problems for inerrancy as they both cannot be right. Hence, biblical scholarship would necessarily rule out inerrancy, even when accounting for literary changes as such changes do in fact alter historical detail and thus negate inerrancy.
Scholars have known and shown that Matthew and Luke have used Mark to write his own gospel, changing texts from Mark to suit his own authorial purpose. If these gospel writers thought that the gospels were inerrant, why would they then copy, modify, correct, and improve upon them as they write their own version of gospel teachings and events? This is biblical proof against inerrancy.
John dates the death of Jesus on a different day than Mark. For John, Jesus was crucified after noon on the day of preparation for Passover. For Mark, Jesus was crucified on the morning after the Passover meal. Historically, who is right? Bart suggests that John seemed to have altered a historical datum to make a theological point — that Jesus was the lamb of God who was slain for the sins of the world, just as lambs were slain to cover for sins on the day of preparation before Passover.
In short, while having an inspired Bible does some good as well as creates big problems, it is certainly not necessary for Christians to have an inspired Bible, as has been the case throughout much of Christian history. Biblical inerrancy is an idea needed for Christian fundamentalists who use it as ammunition for asserting their supremacy over all other texts, traditions, and cultures. This unfortunately has given rise to the pushing of problematic social and political agendas such as harmful Bible-thumping white nationalism. This has often manifested in real hatred and violence.
For sincere, well-meaning people who are not selfish but looking for guidance and hope in life, the Bible can to offer real sources of meaning and hope even as it opposes the prejudice, hatred, and violence that some groups have misappropriated the Bible for. The Bible is not an inherent thing but it gets used by all kinds of people including greedy, selfish, and hateful ones. If used by kind and intelligent people, things would go well.
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